We’re thrilled to say that we’ve been getting an increasing amount of reader questions with their own excel challenges or problems. It’s always interesting because no matter what the subject or the exact problem is, we can usually learn something that can be applied at some point in the future. In this case, we received an email from a reader that is attempting to save how much savings she is making using simple coupons. The only twist? All coupons of $0.50 or less are doubled by the store. Simple enough? Our reader was attempting to either use the “nested IF statements or an “else if”. She also sent me a sample file which I’ve modified slightly and will let you see at the end of this post.

As in almost any other excel problem, the main challenge is usually to “see the problem in the simplest way”. It’s much easier said than done of course. In this case, what is the situation exactly?

-Buyer buys a given number of items
-For each item there may be a coupon
-That coupon should be applied but any coupon worth less than $0.50 should be doubled in value.

Personally, I think we can easily resolve this problem with a simple “if” condition without adding any “or else” or “nested if” conditions. It’s always about finding the easiest way which not only saves us time but also makes it much easier to modify and improve the fills.